Addicted to Soda? Use This One Simple Habit To Quit (For Life)

Back in college, I had a roommate that used to drink 6-10 Cokes a day.

That’s a lot of soda…

And as you can imagine, he was about a hundred pounds overweight, and found it very difficult to kick the habit (especially since he’d get serious caffeine withdrawal headaches).

For most of us, soda is pretty much everywhere and it’s HARD to stop drinking it 100%, even if we know it’s filled with crap.

So what’s the fix?

It all comes down to one tiny habit.

The World’s Most Awesome Guide to Breaking the Soda Habit

First… here’s a quick primer on how habits work.

As it turns out, habits are created in a three step process:

Cue

Routine

Reward

The cue is whatever sets off the behavior and triggers it. For a smoker, they might be sitting at work around 3 pm when the boss comes over and drops a huge project in their lap. They start stressing out and need a break. They feel agitated and need to do something. That’s the cue.

So what does the smoker do? She gets up and goes for for a smoke break and takes a little walk / de-stress session outside. That’s the routine.

As a result, she feels relaxed and much more calm than before. That’s thereward.

Here’s another example many of you are probably familiar with: Compulsive texting / emailing.

The cue in this case is the phone sending us a notification. The routine is checking the notification. And the reward is feeling satisfied – like our ADD has been temporarily relieved :-).

So let’s take a look at this soda habit cycle in particular:

The cue in this case depends on the individual. Here are some super common cues that I’ve seen working with clients:

Being bored at work around 3pm (or right after work, or late at night ~ 9 pm with TV)

Feeling sad after getting into an argument with your spouse or mother/father

The point of the cue is the same: when the cue is triggered, the habit begins.

So whenever that afternoon boredom hits, that’s when we begin fidgeting and looking around for something to do – craving stimulation – and that’s also when the soda habit is often triggered.

The routine here is super simple. Drink the soda.

The reward is the feeling of “no longer feeling bored” – in other words, having something to do.

But there’s a problem – if you don’t know what triggers it, how can you fix it?

So Here’s How We Break This Habit Cycle

Take a look at the habit cycle for soda once more:

The first step is that you need to figure out what your cue is.

And here’s an easy way to do it: the index card method.

For an entire week, I want you to carry around an index card and every time you get a soda craving, you’re going to write down two things.

What you were just doing

What you were just feeling (what state you were in)

So here’s what that looks like:

I was just:

… Just at work, working on a spreadsheet…. Feeling ridiculously bored.

… Just at work, finishing up that project… Feeling stressed because the boss yelled at me.

… Just got off work… feeling a bit stressed and eager to sit down and relax.

After you do this for an entire week, you’re going to notice some eerie similarities.

In fact, I would say in the majority of people, this habit is usually linked to boredom (in-between periods), or routines – like having a drink with lunch, having a drink with a movie, having a drink immediately after work, etc.

What that means is that we know WHY we’re drinking the soda, for example:

– We want stress relief

– We want “something to do”

But now, we’re going to swap the routine to get the feeling of relief, or stimulation, or whatever we want, from something other than soda.

So if you’re just bored, you can swap out your soda for a dozen other drinks: coffee, fizzy water, seltzer, another drink.

Or, you could technically even swap it out for an activity, like taking a 5 minute walk around the office or play a video game on your phone (which is what I do… closet nerd).

The cue goes off – I’m so bored working on this damn spreadsheet again – and then instead of drinking the soda, we can get up and go outside, or go talk to a friend for a few minutes, or play angry birds on the phone for a bit to get the same ultimate feeling of relief.

Or, if you want to make it even lower friction, just drink another beverage (mentioned above) so it mimics almost everything about soda.

Makes sense?

Your Tiny Habit For Today

Today’s tiny habit is one to help you stop drinking soda, or excessive fake fruit juice, or any other form of liquid calories if you’re trying to get off them.

First, do the index card exercise.

Second, swap out the habit routine for another activity that’ll give you the same feeling of relief.

Thanks Alex! I am going to try this out. I have tried to cut soda out of my routine for a while. A few times succeeded for a few weeks; just drinking water instead, but I always went back to it. I am not overweight but I know all that soda I drink cannot be good for me. I tend to drink it in the morning, lunch, and dinner. It is pretty bad and maybe if I find out why I am drinking it, it will help me and switch it for something else for good.

Hello! I wanted to give you an update. I believe my trigger was stress. Soda was my break and at same time I think I do find soda particularly satisfying for some reason. I don’t actually think it is a sugar craving since I would just want to drink it even if it was a little bit. So while at the supermarket I noticed carbonated water. I purchased it and switched it for soda. So everytime I need a break (i work on the pc all day) I drink carbonated water. So far so good. Perhaps I have fooled myself to think its soda because of the carbonated part. Not sure but its working. Thanks for your articles!

So what do you do if you swap it out, but the routine is really strong and you just walk around the rest of the day thinking about having a soda? How do you get your brain to accept a substitute? And what do you do about the hunger you now have cause you just cut 600 calories out of your daily routine?